Simple substitution cipher, but with stick figures, a la The Adventure of the Dancing Men. The plaintext is "started with four letters but only need three what a riddle what a mystery." I'm not certain what it means.

Page 11001:

Spoiler:

Assuming z is at least 2, [math]\int_0^\infty t^{z-1} e^{-t} dt=\left [-t^{z-1}e^{-t} \right ]_0^\infty+\int_0^\infty t^{z-2} e^{-t} dt=\int_0^\infty t^{z-2} e^{-t} dt.[/math]So by induction, this is equal to [imath]\int_0^\infty e^{-t} dt=[-e^{-t}]_0^\infty=1[/imath] for any whole number z. I'm not quite sure what 1ing is, so I may have made a dumb mistake...

Page 110120:

Spoiler:

The start of the tenth-favorite word used by Bender: C (for Chump)The toon that went south while commanded by Ender: B (first battle, against Rabbit)The number of lights that Picard said were on: 4 (Chain of Command)And the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!": I'm not sure about this one - it's been a while since I watched Wrath of Khan. A friend of mine, who's a bigger trak geek than I am, says this took place on Ceti Alpha V, which Memory Alpha lists as "barely class M" prior to the events of WoK, but was class H during WoK. However, the WoK article seems to imply that the enraged shout took place not on the planet but on an asteroid. My guess is H, but confirmation would be niceThe rings of the men minus rings for the elves: 9-3=6And the product mod ten of a foursome of twelves: 124=24=16=6 (mod 10)The end of a code NES gamers know: assuming you don't count select+start, AAnd the base used to model how quickly things grow: e

When xor'd together, we're supposed to get 'E', but this doesn't seem to be the case (unless the planet was T class, which seems unlikely), so there must be some mistake here.

Also, I'm not quite sure what's up with the page numbers. As far as I can tell

Spoiler:

They are all sequences of 0s, 1s, and 2s, in length-lexicographic order (which is the same as increasing order of the number they represent in base 3, or any base >3 such as 10) such that a '2' can only be followed by '0's. I can't come up with a nicer description, or any reason why this would be interesting.

The start of the tenth-favorite word used by Bender: C (for Chump)The toon that went south while commanded by Ender: B (first battle, against Rabbit)The number of lights that Picard said were on: 4 (Chain of Command)And the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!": I'm not sure about this one - it's been a while since I watched Wrath of Khan. A friend of mine, who's a bigger trak geek than I am, says this took place on Ceti Alpha V, which Memory Alpha lists as "barely class M" prior to the events of WoK, but was class H during WoK. However, the WoK article seems to imply that the enraged shout took place not on the planet but on an asteroid. My guess is H, but confirmation would be niceThe rings of the men minus rings for the elves: 9-3=6And the product mod ten of a foursome of twelves: 124=24=16=6 (mod 10)The end of a code NES gamers know: assuming you don't count select+start, AAnd the base used to model how quickly things grow: e

When xor'd together, we're supposed to get 'E', but this doesn't seem to be the case (unless the planet was T class, which seems unlikely), so there must be some mistake here.

As far as page 110120:

Spoiler:

And the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!" < I _think_ this actually happened on whatever planet the research station was on-- Memory Alpha says this was Regula and it's class D *shrug*And the product mod ten of a foursome of twelves < My book says "fivesome", not foursome, which would make this 2. I think.

Page 1012:

Spoiler:

's just braille. Says "It takes more time than you expect but less than you fear", if my ability to look up the braille alphabet on wikipedia hasn't failed me.

And the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!" < I _think_ this actually happened on whatever planet the research station was on-- Memory Alpha says this was Regula and it's class D *shrug*And the product mod ten of a foursome of twelves < My book says "fivesome", not foursome, which would make this 2. I think.

Thanks for pointing out the foursome vs. fivesome mistake. I'm still not sure about the planet, though, since xoring still doesn't seem to give E.

I'm looking forward to the day when the SNES emulator on my computer works by emulating the elementary particles in an actual, physical box with Nintendo stamped on the side.

And the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!" < I _think_ this actually happened on whatever planet the research station was on-- Memory Alpha says this was Regula and it's class D *shrug*And the product mod ten of a foursome of twelves < My book says "fivesome", not foursome, which would make this 2. I think.

Thanks for pointing out the foursome vs. fivesome mistake. I'm still not sure about the planet, though, since xoring still doesn't seem to give E.

Spoiler:

CB4D62AE = 1100 1011 0100 1101 0110 0010 1010 1110

11001011010011010110001010101110------1110 = E (Assuming I'm remember correctly that xoring multiple numbers together gives you 1s if there's an odd number of 1s in a given place)

The comic on page 10020 has different text on the last panel (I think, I can't remember what the original strip is called-- having the titles of these would be nice) but I think it used to end "It turns out wanting something badly doesn't make it true" or something.

The comic on page 10100 has the time as 2:07 and the factorization as 3x3x23 instead of 2:53 and 11x23 in the one on the web. Wonder if this has something to do with the random block of squares on the page referenced in the comment on it?

EDIT:

and the alt text for the very first one isn't right- On the website it's something about how it was the first drawing he did for the website, in the book it references e and the square root of 2... could be hints. or could be the original alt-text and it's been changed in the years since. *shrug*

Assuming z is at least 2, [math]\int_0^\infty t^{z-1} e^{-t} dt=\left [-t^{z-1}e^{-t} \right ]_0^\infty+\int_0^\infty t^{z-2} e^{-t} dt=\int_0^\infty t^{z-2} e^{-t} dt.[/math]So by induction, this is equal to [imath]\int_0^\infty e^{-t} dt=[-e^{-t}]_0^\infty=1[/imath] for any whole number z. I'm not quite sure what 1ing is, so I may have made a dumb mistake...

I think that's incorrect:

Spoiler:

The answer seems to be the gamma function of z, Γ(z). (Also think it's just a joke related to the comic as opposed to part of some larger puzzle.)

it's impossible to measure love, and without measurement there can be no science. When it comes to love, we're all in the dark, --kinsey

oh, and page 11.. not sure I fully understand but:

Spoiler:

1 0 T A E / K E2 0 I B S W I Y0 D E 6 5 T N 8C O 2 5 . R A P

it is hard to say which is 1, and which is I, and O-0, and 5-S. However, there's a message scrambled inside the block, says something like: 'a bitwise key code part'.When removing the letters that consist the message we're left with:10/20065825

not sure whether they're the keys for deciphering the message, or part 2/8 as suggested above.

Edit: Apparently my thread got merged with this one, which I didn't see when making mine. In any case, here's a list of all of the codes and such in the book and my work on them. I've marked the ones I solved with a red asterisk. skeptical scientist has already added the rest of the information from this thread below.

Note: In a couple places it's unclear whether it uses 0 (zero) or O (capital o) and also whether it uses 1 (one) or I (capital i). Where there are both alpha and numeric characters, I've used 0 and 1, pretty much arbitrarily. Please correct me if this is wrong.

*1. Page numbers

Spoiler:

The pages are numbered in "skew binary" whereby each digit represents a multiple of 2k+1-1.

So 10112skew would be 1*(25-1)+0*(24-1)+1*(23-1)+1*(22-1)+2*(21-1)=31+0+7+3+2=43.

Skew binary also has the property that all digits are either 0 or 1 except for the rightmost non-zero digit.

2. 15 11 1 25 8 5 18 5 23 5 7 15

*3. CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG.

Spoiler:

It uses ROT13. It translates to "PART ONE OF EIGHT IN HEX: EE NINE EIGHT FIVE ONE ONE EIGHT."

The comic is #247, but the one in the book is different from the one on the site. In the book, the time is 2:07 and therefore the guy says "207 is 3x3x23" and then in the last panel the time is changed to 14:07.

10. On page 10101 there are stick figures posed in various ways. Again, I have no good way of typing this.

On a different place on the same page: SICHINGULUUNGUUNG HSICHING ULUUNGATAQANM- SICHINGULUUNGSICHINGQSICHINGN NUATAQANNote: there's a new line after the "-" so I don't know if it's part of the same word or not.

Then, you remove the parts of the code which are part of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". He actually incorrectly wrote the last word (or the part of it that's there) wrong. It should be borogoves, rather than borogroves.TWAUVLGBGAAAOFSBRILLIGANDTLVHNRVRNVNRHESLITHYTOVERBHXRTRNRRCSDIDGYRQILFEAIAWHYEANDGIMBLEIRGBUEURJFJUNTHEWABEALLMIMSQRFSLVRVBCRYWERETHEBOROEYTAIAYFQXRGROV

And then read down the columns and you get "Hey reddit I love you guys thanks for everything nine eleven was an inside job wake up sheeple"

14. HALF OF WHAT YOU SEEK IS HERE / AND HALF YOU'VE SEEN BEFORESO WHY DON'T YOU WISE UP A BIT / AND DIGG A LITTLE MORE

429C6822BE41C334BE616EFFF8B5A320

15. On page 100012 there are 5 QR codes.

16. There's some pixel-y thing on page 101110 that I don't know the name for.

17. There's a random "DO" on page 110102, I don't know if it's a code or not.

18. The start of the tenth favorite word used by BenderThe toon that went south while commanded by EnderThe number of lights that Picard said were onAnd the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!"The rings for the men minus rings for the elvesAnd the product mod ten of a fivesome of twelvesThe end of a code NES gamers knowAnd the base used to model how quickly things growWhen they're XOR'd together the checksum is "E"Which will tell you you've got the penultimate key

Page 10100 has the number 101110, below the comic, in red. The comic on page 10100 is #247, but the one in the book is different from the one on the site. In the book, the time is 2:07 and therefore the guy says "207 is 3x3x23" and then in the last panel the time is changed to 14:07.

The number 101110 is a page number. That page has a small red pixel drawing, which is 23 pixels wide and 9=3x3 pixels high, and therefore contains 207 pixels. I'm not sure how this helps, but I suspect it's a clue.

Page 1111 "3 of 8"

Spoiler:

Presumably the third part of the 256 bit AES key referenced in the code on page 11 is concealed on this page. The Penny Arcade non-parody seems to exactly match comic #160, so my guess is nothing is hidden in it. The other comic, by contrast, does NOT match the original comic #153, so I'm guessing the key part is the numbers in the slide, which no longer match the diagrams for shift/invert/reverse as they do in the original.

This gives 1101 1010 0001 0000 0001 1100 1011 1100 = DA101CBC

Alright, this seems like a good time for a summary of what we know. I'm going to take the previous post and incorporate the older solutions. A red asterisk means that the code has been deciphered, although the deciphered text may not be entirely explained. A blue asterisk means some non-code puzzle has been solved. A spoiler with no asterisk means we have partial information but not a decipherment and/or complete solution. The solution credit will go to the first person who solved it in this thread.

*1. Page numbers

Spoiler:

The pages are numbered in "skew binary" whereby each digit represents a multiple of 2k+1-1.

So 10112skew would be 1*(25-1)+0*(24-1)+1*(23-1)+1*(22-1)+2*(21-1)=31+0+7+3+2=43.

Skew binary also has the property that all digits are either 0 or 1 except for the rightmost non-zero digit.

Solved by eiπ+1=0.

*2. (last page of intro, unnumbered) 15 11 1 25 8 5 18 5 23 5 7 15

Spoiler:

These are just letters, with 1=a, 2=b, 3=c, etc., so we have, "okay here we go."

If you walk over the letters, starting at the top left, you can get the following:10020 code 256 bit aes w/ key in 8 parts.

10020 contains the big hexadecimal code, and we have other clues labeled part n/8, so it makes sense. A 256 bit key in 8 parts should have 32 bits per part, so each part should be 8 hex digits. This matches what we saw for part 1.

Simple substitution cipher, operating on all characters (letters and punctuation). It deciphers to "It's impossible to measure love, and without measurement there can be no science. When it comes to love, we're all in the dark. --Kinsey" This quote goes with comic #55: "Useless".

Solved by yehudasa.

*6. (page 1012) Dot pattern, not easily typed.

Spoiler:

Braille. It reads, "It takes more time than you expect but less than you fear." This is a reference to the above comic, #128: "dPain over dt".

Solved by FallenNicolae.

*7. (page 1111) "3 of 8".

Spoiler:

Presumably the third part of the 256 bit AES key referenced in the code on page 11 is concealed on this page. The Penny Arcade non-parody seems to exactly match comic #160, so my guess is nothing is hidden in it. The other comic, by contrast, does NOT match the original comic #153, so I'm guessing the key part is the numbers in the slide, which no longer match the diagrams for shift/invert/reverse as they do in the original.

This gives 1101 1010 0001 0000 0001 1100 1011 1100 = DA101CBC

Solved by skeptical scientist.

8. (page 10020) The comic on this page is #240, incase it's connected.

That comic holds a special place in Randall's heart, as he explained in the intro (and elsewhere). Also, this code seems to be the focus of several other codes in the book, so it seems important. I'm guessing that deciphering this code, when deciphered, will lead to another meetup or other real-world happening. That could mean there's a time limit on it, but hopefully Randall will have made it far enough in advance that we have some time.

Two things have changed between this comic and the original. The coordinates went from 42.39561 -71.13051 2007 09 23 14 38 00 to 42.39561 -79.13051 2007 09 23 02 38 00, and the conversation on the last panel changed completely. I'm not sure what either of these changes might mean; possibly deciphering the encrypted message might provide some clues.

Unsolved.

9. (page 10100) 101110

Spoiler:

The comic on page 10100 is #247, but the one in the book is different from the one on the site. In the book, the time is 2:07 and therefore the guy says "207 is 3x3x23" and then in the last panel the time is changed to 14:07.

The number 101110 is a page number. That page has a small red pixel drawing, which is 23 pixels wide and 9=3x3 pixels high, and therefore contains 207 pixels. I'm not sure how this helps, but I suspect it's a clue.

Unsolved.

*10. (page 10101) Sequence of stick figures posed in various ways.

Spoiler:

Simple substitution cipher, but with stick figures, a la The Adventure of the Dancing Men. The plaintext is "started with four letters but only need three what a riddle what a mystery." I'm not certain what it means.

Ataqan is the Aleut number 1, for example; siching is 4, uluung is 7 and chaang is 5. We can pick out each occurrence of an aleut number in blue:uataqanuung qsichingnkuchaang chsichingsichingng sichinguluunguung chaangataqanchataqanng sichinguluunguung hsichinguluuungataqanm-sichinguluungsichingqsichingn nuataqan

Then, you remove the parts of the code which are part of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". He actually incorrectly wrote the last word (or the part of it that's there) wrong. It should be borogoves, rather than borogroves.TWAUVLGBGAAAOFSBRILLIGANDTLVHNRVRNVNRHESLITHYTOVERBHXRTRNRRCSDIDGYRQILFEAIAWHYEANDGIMBLEIRGBUEURJFJUNTHEWABEALLMIMSQRFSLVRVBCRYWERETHEBOROEYTAIAYFQXRGROV

Which I believe are Mario Kart levels (and presumably times)-- makes sense given the comic on that page.

There are QR code readers for many cellphones, including the iPhone, so if anyone can download one (or already has one) and can try to decipher the fourth code, I would appreciate it. My cellphone, unfortunately, won't work.

Solved (mostly) by FallenNicolae.

16. (page 101110) Pixel image.

Spoiler:

As I said above, I believe this is related to the factoring the time comic on page 10100.

Unsolved.

17. (various pages) Page 101010, in the upper-right corner, has "LY" in gray text. Other pages have red text in the upper-right corner, always two letters. Page 101120: IK; page 102000: GU; page 110100: EH; page 110102: DO; page 110111: CR. I'm not sure what any of this means, or if the difference between red and grey text is significant.

Unsolved.

*18. (page 110120) The start of the tenth favorite word used by BenderThe toon that went south while commanded by EnderThe number of lights that Picard said were onAnd the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!"The rings for the men minus rings for the elvesAnd the product mod ten of a fivesome of twelvesThe end of a code NES gamers knowAnd the base used to model how quickly things growWhen they're XOR'd together the checksum is "E"Which will tell you you've got the penultimate key

Spoiler:

The start of the tenth-favorite word used by Bender: C (for Chump)The toon that went south while commanded by Ender: B (first battle, against Rabbit)The number of lights that Picard said were on: 4 (Chain of Command)And the class of the planet where Kirk shouted "Khaaan!": D class planet (Regula)The rings of the men minus rings for the elves: 9-3=6And the product mod ten of a fivesome of twelves: 125=25=32=2 (mod 10)The end of a code NES gamers know: assuming you don't count select+start, AAnd the base used to model how quickly things grow: e

0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011 is 70 binary digits. Breaking this into 14 sequences of 5 digits, and converting binary to decimal, we have 6 9 14 1 12 3 15 4 5 9 19 1 5 19. Making the substitution 1=a, 2=b, etc., we get finalcodeisaes, i.e. "final code is aes". This seems rather redundant (we already knew that from page 11), but it seems to be the solution.

I'm looking forward to the day when the SNES emulator on my computer works by emulating the elementary particles in an actual, physical box with Nintendo stamped on the side.

Could this be a reference to the AACS encryption key controversy? If so, the half we've seen before is presumably the 128 bit number 09F91102 9D74E35B D84156C5 635688C0, which goes with the number 429C6822 BE41C334 BE616EFF F8B5A320 to give us a 256-bit key. The trouble is, what is it a key TO? I'm guessing not the code on page 10200...

I'm looking forward to the day when the SNES emulator on my computer works by emulating the elementary particles in an actual, physical box with Nintendo stamped on the side.

There is far too much information embedded in the pattern to be meant as raw binary data, and there is also a lot of red squares, so those seem to have some special meaning to the code.An interesting fact is that counting the number of continuous red squares (separating by white ones), every number is strictly less than 16 (15 occurs two times when read horizontally, 13 one time when read vertically). This - and the thought mentioned above - suggests that this might be on the right track for solving the code.These numbers as a sequence horizontally is (reading from left to right and wrapping down - and with the rule that two white squares adjacent to each other implies a sequence of length 0):1516f1412f1102201010101113201141000000002312a412450a11010002c024which, while it is not ASCII, looks pattern-like and also coincidentally has length 64.

Now, I know nothing about cryptography, but I am good at spotting patterns. I think there's a chance you're on to something with that.

operator[] wrote:Thoughts on page 101110:

Spoiler:

These numbers as a sequence horizontally is (reading from left to right and wrapping down - and with the rule that two white squares adjacent to each other implies a sequence of length 0):1516f1412f1102201010101113201141000000002312a412450a11010002c024which, while it is not ASCII, looks pattern-like and also coincidentally has length 64.

These numbers as a sequence horizontally is (reading from left to right and wrapping down - and with the rule that two white squares adjacent to each other implies a sequence of length 0):1516f1412f1102201010101113201141000000002312a412450a11010002c024which, while it is not ASCII, looks pattern-like and also coincidentally has length 64.

Spoiler:

It turns out I miscounted... The actual sequence is 1516f1410002f1102201010101132011410000000023120a412450a11010002c024,which is 67 letters and probably not the correct one to look for patterns in. I think the method may be correct though, so I'll continue looking at it.

Xami wrote:

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure this would be the opposite of Occam's RazorAnyone apply the game of life to puzzle 101110?

Spoiler:

If not the regular Game of Life, it is possible other rules from Cellular Automaton would work, as in xkcd 505. Look up the page/comic number at MathWorld.

I found a mistake in a previous post; the first 2 characters are 77 in the book not 66also on page 101110

nerd65536 wrote:Attached is the pattern on page 101110. I copied it by hand.Also, 1407=3x7x67

Spoiler:

check page 10100 and there is a red page number referring to this page; also on 10100 is a comic about factoring the time, which is different from the original. ( http://xkcd.com/247/ ) The factored time from the first panel is 3x3x23, which is the same as 9x23, which is the "height by width" of the image that nerd65536 copied for us

nerd65536 wrote:Attached is the pattern on page 101110. I copied it by hand.Also, 1407=3x7x67

Spoiler:

check page 10100 and there is a red page number referring to this page; also on 10100 is a comic about factoring the time, which is different from the original. ( http://xkcd.com/247/ ) The factored time from the first panel is 3x3x23, which is the same as 9x23, which is the "height by width" of the image that nerd65536 copied for us

Now that doesn't sound like a coincidence. Question is, what does it mean?

Since the puzzle deals with the number 207, I looked up comic 207. It has a rule for dealing with a 2-dimensional pattern of floor tiles. I'm not sure how it might be interpreted in this context, though.

Spoiler:

operator[] wrote:If not the regular Game of Life, it is possible other rules from Cellular Automaton would work, as in xkcd 505. Look up the page/comic number at MathWorld.

Wolfram Rule 34:Rule 34 is an Elementary Cellular Automaton that operates on a 1-dimensional array.It slides a window, 3 elements wide, across the array, looks up the contents of the window in the definition of the rule, then outputs a new element.

Rule 34 is not symmetric, so it matters whether you read left-to-right or right-to-left, and a 2D array can be read in a number of different directions. It seems someone could write a simple program to try Rule 34 on our array.